Online Extras

MORE ONLINE: To read more food-related stories, get recipes, see food-related photo galleries and videos, click here.
PRETZEL SANDWICH ROLLS
2 cups warm water
1 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
21/4 teaspoons dry yeast
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons half & half
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons baking soda
1. Combine warm water, dark brown sugar and honey in a mixing bowl and stir. Add the yeast and stir to dissolve. Let stand until mixture begins to foam, about 5 minutes.
2. Melt butter, add half & half and add to yeast mixture with salt.
3. Measure out 2 cups of flour and add to bowl. With mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix until incorporated. Add flour 1/3 cup at a time until dough is no longer sticky and pulls away from the side of the bowl.
4. Knead on low setting for 5 minutes. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour, 30 minutes.
5. Punch down dough and turn out onto a floured surface. Divide into 8 equal portions.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.
6. Shape dough into balls, pinching the bottom together and then rolling lightly with the ball of your hand. Place on lightly floured baking sheet and cover lightly with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 3 minutes.
7. While rolls are rising, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Bring heat down to a medium simmer and add baking soda. This foams up quickly, so add one tablespoon at a time. Now the fun begins. The fun part only because it means one thing -- you are getting closer to eating one of these delicious rolls. When rolls are ready, carefully drop rolls into the baking soda bath one at a time with the side that will be the bottom facing up. Poach for 30 seconds, carefully turn the roll over in the liquid and poach for another 30 seconds.
8. With a slotted spoon, remove the rolls from the water and place on a lightly greased baking sheet, seam side down. Glaze each roll with lightly beaten egg wash coating all sides. Sprinkle with pretzel salt. With a sharp, straight edge, cut a slash or an "X" in the top of each roll.
9. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.
-- www.thedailymeal.com
- Per serving: 304 calories, 5.9 grams fat, 1.6 grams fiber, 8.4 grams protein, 54 grams carbohydrate, 294 milligrams sodium, 13 milligrams cholesterol
Values are approximate.

I am assuming you A) live under a rock or B) have seen the Wendy's commercial for burgers served on a pretzel roll.

A year ago, I'd only seen pretzel rolls, I swear, as part of Country Fair's breakfast sandwiches. Now they're everywhere. In addition to Wendy's, National Restaurant News listed more than a dozen restaurants nationwide that are using them, including TGI Fridays, which serves sliders on pretzel rolls. Every foodie website suddenly has a pretzel roll recipe.

Pretzel rolls are soft pretzel dough shaped into rolls. They're not squishy like regular bread and much sturdier even than kaiser rolls, making it easy to pile your sandwich fillings high -- perhaps too high. It took me half an hour to eat one with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion. I wasn't hungry again for 12 hours.

Pretzel rolls are great for sloppy stuff, such as pulled pork or Greek dogs, and anything else you might want to serve during a football game -- especially for diners eating on your couch.

Five things I learned:

1. My rolls were roughly half the size of the moon. I don't think they were supposed to get that big, but I had to add almost five cups of flour to get the dough right. The recipe said it was supposed to be "no longer sticky and pulls away from the side of the bowl," and that would take about three or four cups of flour, but I kept touching it and it would stick to my finger, so I'd add another one-third cup flour. That went on for some time.

The dough behaved well after that, so I don't know what happened. I do know that next time I'll shape them into much smaller balls.

2. This recipe was pretty standard for most homemade bread in that you have to mix, knead, rise, punch down, shape and re-rise. They're also a lot like bagels, which you have to boil.

The difference when making something with the look and feel of soft pretzel dough is adding 3 tablespoons of baking soda to the boiling water.

According to Food Network cook Alton Brown on www.goodeatsfanpage.com, the baking soda bath causes the outside of the pretzel dough to "gelatinize," a chemical process that will make them turn dark brown when baked.

3. Another thing that helps the rolls turn brown is the egg wash you paint all over the raw dough. It contains a smidgen of sugar and protein needed to cause a Maillard reaction (browning), which makes it a little shiny and crusty, too.

4. Add the baking soda to boiling water slowly. It foams instantly, like opening a pop bottle after shaking it. If you add it all at once, you could have a mess on your hands and stove and range and counter and floor.

5. Speaking of chemical leaveners, by which I mean baking soda and baking powder, what good are they? If I run out of one, can I use the other?

Baking soda and powder make the difference between most baked goods and, say, hard tack, for those of you who remember that stuff. Personally, I'd rather eat roofing shingles.

If you're going to eat flour, fat and sugar, you're going to need carbon dioxide to put some space between the solids. Yeast makes carbon dioxide when it eats sugar, which is what makes bread rise.

Chemical leaveners such as baking soda and baking powder make carbon dioxide in reactions facilitated by water. They work differently. Baking soda reacts with acids such as lemon juice or vinegar. (Think science fair volcanoes.) Baking powder is baking soda already mixed with dry, acidic ingredients that react with water.

Soda is used when the recipe already contains acids. Powder is used when it doesn't. Sometimes you need both, when you have just a little acid.

Baking soda has other genius uses as well, namely gelatinizing the surface of boiling bread dough.

Online Extras

MORE ONLINE: To read more food-related stories, get recipes, see food-related photo galleries and videos, click here.
PRETZEL SANDWICH ROLLS
2 cups warm water
1 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
21/4 teaspoons dry yeast
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons half & half
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons baking soda
1. Combine warm water, dark brown sugar and honey in a mixing bowl and stir. Add the yeast and stir to dissolve. Let stand until mixture begins to foam, about 5 minutes.
2. Melt butter, add half & half and add to yeast mixture with salt.
3. Measure out 2 cups of flour and add to bowl. With mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix until incorporated. Add flour 1/3 cup at a time until dough is no longer sticky and pulls away from the side of the bowl.
4. Knead on low setting for 5 minutes. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour, 30 minutes.
5. Punch down dough and turn out onto a floured surface. Divide into 8 equal portions.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.
6. Shape dough into balls, pinching the bottom together and then rolling lightly with the ball of your hand. Place on lightly floured baking sheet and cover lightly with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 3 minutes.
7. While rolls are rising, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Bring heat down to a medium simmer and add baking soda. This foams up quickly, so add one tablespoon at a time. Now the fun begins. The fun part only because it means one thing -- you are getting closer to eating one of these delicious rolls. When rolls are ready, carefully drop rolls into the baking soda bath one at a time with the side that will be the bottom facing up. Poach for 30 seconds, carefully turn the roll over in the liquid and poach for another 30 seconds.
8. With a slotted spoon, remove the rolls from the water and place on a lightly greased baking sheet, seam side down. Glaze each roll with lightly beaten egg wash coating all sides. Sprinkle with pretzel salt. With a sharp, straight edge, cut a slash or an "X" in the top of each roll.
9. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.
-- www.thedailymeal.com
- Per serving: 304 calories, 5.9 grams fat, 1.6 grams fiber, 8.4 grams protein, 54 grams carbohydrate, 294 milligrams sodium, 13 milligrams cholesterol
Values are approximate.